


the world's alright with me

by MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_nerimon/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s killed the undead and lived in the woods and done it all with Jonathan Byers, which is probably the weirdest part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I really don't even know. I have homework due tomorrow, too. It's 1 am. Save me.
> 
> But everybody loves a good Zombie AU, am I right ladies?  
> The timeline isn't super clear in this, if that's a problem please let me know!

She squeezes the handle in her palm, waits for her racing heart to die down.

_One Mississippi, two Mississippi...._

She hears a grunt behind her, a soft slide as Jonathan drags the body off the road. 

Nancy thinks make she should feel sick, or sad, or something. 

But she's seen worse in the time preceding their departure from Hawkins, and she doesn’t feel much of anything at all.

"Hey," He comes up behind her, hand brushing her back. 

"You wanna drive?"

He holds out the key ring, and there's blood on his tips of his fingers. 

Her thumb throbs, the minuscule injury reasserting itself. She sucks in a breath, reaches out, takes the keys.

* * *

In retrospect, yeah, it's pretty freaking weird. She's fighting zombies with Jonathan Byers, trekking through the woods and trying to find her brother, all at once, in some horrible Stephen King knockoff. 

She's also learning to drive, like her mother promised they'd do this summer. So at least one thing worked out.

* * *

A thousand other things didn’t.

It’s a disease, the news says, so cover your mouths and close your windows.

It’s the environment, the paper reads, so don’t go outside at night.

It’s all of that, and something else, horrible secrets spilling out of the lab at the edge of town.

It’s not like they wake up one day and Hawkins is a wasteland. It’s more of a gradual progression of small town America to apocalypse movie set.

School’s suspended, so she and Mike spend their days at home, flitting between the basement and their bedrooms and trying not to overhear what their parents are discussing.

Steve’s family already left. Hawkins, definitely, Indiana, maybe.

“It’s bad, Nance.” He says on the phone one night, only he doesn’t seem to know exactly why either.

The first ‘ _confirmed_ ’ attack is a joke, she thinks. Some stupid teenager with nothing but time on his hands now. Trying to scare a whole town.

Only later that same day she sees the white in her dad’s eyes, the sweat dripping down his neck.

Mom locks her, Holly, and Mike all in his bedroom, gives Nancy a kitchen knife and tells them to stay there.

But Mike gets on the walkie talkie and he and Lucas are swapping stories, talking about their neighbors who left last week.

 _This is serious_ , she wants to say. But she doesn’t totally understand how, or why, or _what the hell is going on_.

It’s like being stuck in a really, really slow moving nightmare.

The baby cries and Nancy sits on Mike’s bed, rereads his movie posters. The boys talk about their monster game.

_Monsters are real, now, aren’t they?_

* * *

The bus station is beyond crowded, people shoving at them every which way, and in half a second her hand slips out of Mike’s, and then-

When she shuts her eyes she can still see her mother clutching at Holly, trying to pull the two of them down the street, _hurry, Nancy, come on!_

But the bus only fits so many, and she's young and fit and able, so they don't deem her at risk. 

Her mom bangs on the windows as the bus pulls away, and Nancy is pushed at on every side by the crowd running after it.

* * *

When she makes it out of the downtown Jonathan is _there_ , and so is she, and their respective siblings have as good a chance as any of being with each other, so.

It makes sense, in the way everything else seems to these days.

* * *

They left Hawkins three days ago. The highways aren’t crowded anymore; anyone who could got out long ago.

But the city was still filled with those who couldn't, and the thought haunts Nancy as they leave.

Her house is empty when she packs her bag, her neighborhood deserted.

She takes a change of clothes and whatever food she can find, shoves it all in a backpack that used to hold her Creative Fiction essay and tuna sandwiches for lunch.

The last look she gets at her hometown is out the fogged back window of Jonathan’s car, main street crumbling and buildings empty.

She sinks down in his front seat, looks out the window at the bare trees and acts like there aren’t tears blurring in her eyes.

* * *

Jonathan has a pistol and a shot gun.

She has Mike’s old little league bat.

They’ll make it work.

“You ever actually see one?” She asks him over breakfast, which is a couple handfuls of Golden Grahams.

He shakes his head.

She didn’t really know Jonathan much before this. She supposes she still doesn’t, because their conversations are mostly limited to “Are you tired?” and “Where next?”

He has a map of all of Indiana in his car. It’s roughly divided into sections, from here to Indianapolis. On foot, they figure, the boys can’t have gotten that far.

“Where’s your mom?” Nancy folds the cereal box, crushes it in her hands.

He stiffens.

Maybe she shouldn’t have.

“Did she get on a bus?”

Jonathan shakes his head again, his bangs settling over his eyes, so she can’t see his expression.

Nancy bites her lip.

“They wouldn’t take me or Will, so she wouldn’t go. And, uh..” He looks just over her shoulder, clenches his jaw. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I lost them.”

She feels the twist in her gut too, the feeling of Mike’s fingers slipping through hers.

And Barb, her face in the crowd, looking right at her, her mouth forming her name.

 _Nancy_!

But it was a madhouse everywhere you turned, Nancy’s still not sure how she even made it out of downtown in one piece. A mob, desperate for any safety, and _them_ the whispers all said, _they_ have to be here.

Jonathan gets off the trunk and goes to open the front door.

She sits for a second, her boots dangling two feet from the asphalt. Grey, old, worn.

Her heel is falling off, and as she slides down from the car trunk to take a better look, her hand runs along the worn key hole, slices on an outstretched piece of metal.

“ _Dammit._.”

She brings her thumb to her mouth, sucks the blood. Jonathan pops his head out of the front.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” She wraps the edge of her shirt around the thin cut, watches it bleed through the light pink coloring.

It’s not deep, it shouldn’t bleed too much. An inconvenience, but not-

Gravel crunches ahead of them. Nancy looks up, and it’s like the first time she caught a sneak peek of a scary movie; the shout of surprise dies in her throat, her hands are frozen at her sides.

It’s a man, sort of. Only his jaw is definitely no longer attached to the rest of his face, and his hands just clench and unclench as he stares straight at her with dead eyes.

“Jonathan.” She whispers, and It takes a little step forward.

She hears the door open, and then a rustling in the car as he, presumably, searches for a weapon.

He comes to stand next to her, and the man- _it_ -thing is regarding the both of them, and Nancy’s still squeezing her thumb in her shirt.

He fires and misses, widely. The thing looks almost offended, but doesn’t make another move forward.

They both stand there, frozen in the moment, until another car comes whizzing by, and the action starts at once.

It moves quick for something… Dead, maybe. A sort of half-run, half-gallop down the side of the highway, and Jonathan’s still firing and _still_ missing.

So she reaches over in a Hail Mary, and he lets her, shoves the gun right in her hands.

Nancy pulls the trigger twice, one after the other, and It falls down just beside the overgrown grass.

* * *

They sleep in the car the same way they have for the past few nights, him in the front seat, her in the back. It’s a big car but she’s curled up nearly in half, hands pressed together, wishing they’d stop shaking.

He shifts in the front, the leather creaking.

Nancy closes her eyes, but she sees It standing there. Looking at her. Watching.

She rolls over, so she can see Jonathan through the space between the seats.

Their eyes meet and it’s more familiar than she thinks it ought to be.

* * *

His car breaks down twenty miles from Indianapolis.

It’s been a week, roughly. And they’ve only come this far. Nancy remembers day trips to the city when she was a kid, school buses there and back in a travel time of two hours.

Of course, those didn’t include vigorously searching all available areas in between for any sign of her family.

Jonathan’s really mad about the car. He tries to hide it, but she can see the creases around his eyes, watches him ball a fist at his side.

“It’s alright.” She says, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “We’re close to the city. We can pick up another one.”

 _Close_ is relative now that their primary mode of transportation is good old fashioned walking, but she’s trying to cheer him up.

He’s silent for most of the afternoon, trekking through the woods lining the freeway. He swings the bat back and forth, lets it crush the bushes they push through.

The sun sets slowly, creeping golden below the horizon.

When it’s too dark to see very far ahead Jonathan slows to a stop. He’s not spoken to her since this morning, since they abandoned his car on the side of the road with a stubborn kick to the wheels.

“Where are we going to sleep?” He asks, like the thought is just occurring to him.

Nancy rubs her toe in the dirt, looks up at him, standing and scowling under a tree.

She’s got a jacket in her backpack; if she really stretches it could covers maybe half her body length.

So she drapes it on the ground, careful to smooth out lumps, and looks up at him.

“Like camping.” She says once they’ve both settled, the ground hard and unmoving beneath them.

Jonathan laughs, maybe the first time she’s ever heard that from him.

“Yeah, real intense camping.” He turns on his side, slides a hand under his head. He’s a foot from her, the nighttime air settling over them.

She watches him watch her for a moment, before she lets her eyes fall closed.

In the morning they’re close beside each other, not quite touching, but a brush of shoulders.

Her stomach twists a little when she wakes up to see his face. She’s not woken up next to a boy like this, not even Steve, whatever that was.

Then her brain wakes up a little more and hisses that they’re _literally hiding from Goddamn zombies, get out of high school, Wheeler._

* * *

They have a nice routine going.

They follow the highway, far enough off that they can’t be spotted. Not that there's people out anyway.

Nancy wonders where everyone has gone. If they have enough money, probably out of the state. Maybe the country. Is it all like this? Or is it just Indiana, doomed to a special fate.

Still, sometimes at night she can hear the very occasional, solitary car.

Sometimes at night she presses her ear to his chest and hears his heartbeat, too.

During the day they take turns carrying the heaviest of their equipment; passing the shotgun back and forth, dreaming up all the food they’d eat if they could.

Jonathan wants pizza. She wants a turkey sandwich.

Mostly they just have beans, _so many beans_ , and tomatoes and corn. Why didn’t they pack anything but beans? Why didn’t they predict that this would take so long?

Even in the beginning it felt like a flash, like a nightmare moment, soon to be over.

But now it’s…. Life. Sort of.

* * *

Nancy thinks of Mike often. Her mom and Holly, too, but they're more than likely safe (or as safe as they can be). Yet,  _Mike_.

She thinks he’s okay; maybe she’d feel it if he wasn’t. He’s probably tall now. Skinny as ever, though.

She imagines his hair long, without their mother's constant trims. Straight black locks, scrawny little arms and lanky legs.

The other boys are hard to see. But she always likes to think of them _together._ One entity.

She thinks of Will as a smaller version of Jonathan, broad shoulders and hard jaw. But in Jonathan’s picture he’s small, wide-eyed. Sleek hair and big smile.

Dustin had that mop of curls; Nancy hopes he still does. And then Lucas, tall and thin, like Mike.

 _Right_?

* * *

 

It's Holly's fourth birthday.

She thinks, anyway. The days are blurred.

She makes a mud cake on the bank of a pond like she's a child, lights a flare and watches it burn. 

The woods are too big, they’re lost, she figures.

Jonathan swears if they follow the road they’ll hit the city, and she doesn’t have any better ideas.

What else could she possibly do? Now that she’s seen _Them_ , she doesn’t want to go out on her own.

Plus, she and Jonathan are a good team. 

She’s not sure how common They are, anyhow; why there haven’t been any in the woods when that one found her on the highway in an instant. There had been nothing out there; she remembers looking down the highway towards Hawkins, thinking of how far away Barb might be now. If she was still in the city, if she'd gotten out. 

Nothing but empty road, just the two of them for as far as she could see.

Then she'd cut heself, and-

Nancy runs a finger over the healed scar on her thumb.

* * *

She puts together two and two to make four, and of course that’s the morning Jonathan nearly chops his own finger off.

He’s trying to open a can with a knife, and he just misses the edge, and his hand’s coated in red in the time it takes her to blink.

“ _Shit_.”

“It’s fine.” He mumbles, because of course he does.

But Jonathan can save being a masochist for later, because she’s not exactly sure how much time they have.

Nancy reaches for the shotgun, rises to her feet. She presses her back up against the tree, figuring it’ll give her some cover, only now she can’t see behind her and-

“What’s going on?” He stumbles to standing, and she watches the blood drip from his hand to the ground.

“It’s coming.” She tries to glance behind the tree, but there’s a rustle up ahead, footsteps, maybe-

Something stumbles out of the green and she readies, aims.

It’s smaller than the other one, with yellow skin and red blotches all down the arms. Nancy shoots, watches it get thrown back into the bushes with a satisfying thud.

She’s lowering the gun when Jonathan pulls at her arm, and she turns to see the same sight coming from the trees to their left, and there’s a noise behind her and it’s so much harder to turn and fire a gun than action movies let on.

She gets the one on the left, straight in the face. She swivels, points it again, but the trigger won’t work, stuck _right_ at this very minute, of course.

The pistol’s in her bag, Jesus, _Goddammit_.

Something grabs at her hair, tugs her head back. It’s fingers hold on tight, pressing bone into her scalp and she’s not entirely sure what comes next.

The pressure on her head releases instantly, and out of the corner of her eyes she sees It crumble in on itself.

Jonathan keeps swinging, again and again, and his blood’s running down the bat.

She swallows down the bile in her throat, waits until he stills.

There’s no sound but their panted breathing. The sun’s streaming through the branches, and they both reek of blood.

* * *

He washes his hand and wraps it with the few bandages they have left. The bleeding has stopped, she hopes, because she’s not about to deal with that again.

“I think they can smell it.” She explains as she checks his hand, turns it over in her own. “The blood, like- it draws them.”

Jonathan closes his eyes.

She presses on the finger, gentle as she can, but no red dots invade the white strips.

He still winces.

Nancy dunks her head in the shallow pond, tries her hardest to scrub the gunk from her hair.

Blood and other things she really, really doesn’t want to think about.

The water around her runs red, but the back of her hair won’t budge.

She tugs and twists and pulls at it, so hard it makes tears burn in her eyes.

“Can you-“ She glances back at Jonathan, gestures aimlessly at her head.

He nods sharply.

His fingers are softer than hers, rubbing the dried bits together in an attempt to disintegrate them. A good idea in theory, probably, but it’s just as fruitless.

“I can’t… It’s stuck.” He shakes the clump softly, and she feels the light tug on her scalp. “Nancy-“

“Cut it.” She swallows dryly, wipes the water from the sides of her face.

“What?”

“Cut it out.” Her hand digs in her pack, emerges with a pair of school scissors.

Mike’s, she thinks. From years ago.

His fingers brush against her skin, and her hand hovers in its attempt to pass him the scissors.

“ _Jonathan_.”

He takes them, finally, sets his bandaged hand around the base of her neck.

“You sure?”

Nancy just nods.

He works quietly, precisely. She feels the locks fall down her back, soft at first, then the weight of the mess clinging to her strands.

She looks straight out ahead, watching the trees opposite them.

When he’s finished he presses the scissors back into her lap, and the metal hits her skin through the rips in her jeans.

They sit there in silence for a minute, then two. Then ten.

When she at last turns around, he’s gazing at her with that intense focus, the look that feels as if he’s going to eat her up.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, and she only nods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got a lil bit away from me, so.... Oops. I'm gonna need another chapter.

They lose track of the time. It's hot and windy, then it rains for days, then it's just hot. For weeks.  

They hit the city one sticky afternoon, stumbling onto an abandoned gas station and agreeing, somehow, they doubled back, if it took them _this long_.

It doesn't matter. All of Indiana is one giant shithole, monster breeding grounds, whatever. And without Will, or Mike, where the hell else are they supposed to go?

The city's not empty; there are still people milling down Main Street. Real people, ordinary people, looking a hell of a lot better than she could have imagined. They get some looks as they pass by, both of them covered in dirt and sweat and toting a shot gun. 

Nancy loops her arm through his as a woman in front of a drug store curls her lip. 

Hawkins was nearly demolished when she left, rubble and dust, everywhere. Indianapolis is better; the buildings still stand, even if there are cryptic ‘CLOSED INDEFINITELY’ signs hanging in the broken windows.

She wonders how they got off so easy, how these people got to stay in their homes and she didn’t.

Jonathan walks with purpose so she follows, her broken boots stumbling along the street.

It starts to rain but they keep going. Houses pass by; some with broken walls, some looking lived-in.

They turn down a side road. The roads are empty here, no one else around. Jonathan pauses momentarily, regards the houses, then chooses.

He hops up the steps, tries the door. It’s unlocked, but still stuck in its frame, and he has to drive his shoulder into the wood a couple times before it budges. He gives a look back at her, still standing at the bottom of the steps, and tilts his head towards the inside.

_Come on._

Nancy presses her lips together.

Again, he moves his head.

_Come on. It’s safe._

It’s weird, how they have conversations like that. She always knew Jonathan wasn’t a talker, necessarily, but after all this time, she’s slid into the habit too.

She follows him, backpack digging on her shoulders, crosses through the threshold. The house is nearly untouched; a thin layer of dirt on the coffee table, the fridge handle. They pass through the living room, head to the kitchen.

There’s food in the pantry, lining the shelves. Just looking at it makes her stomach grumble.

A full-stocked kitchen. Chairs in the living room, an open back yard with a laundry line. It still feels like someone’s home.

She wonders what happened to the people here.

Nancy crosses down the hall, peeks into the master bedroom.

He’s rifling through the nightstand, until he pulls out a packs of bullets. He searches in the dresser next, finds another box.

He’s been here before, she realizes.

“Who lives here?” Nancy hears herself ask. She reconsiders her question. “Who lived here?”

Jonathan turns around, eyes wide, like he didn’t hear her come up.

“My dad.” His voice is soft, the answer immediate but not at all what she expected.

He’s frozen in front of the dresser, both hands gripping cardboard as tight as he can.

Nancy doesn’t know if she should follow that with another question, so they both stand there until she moves an arm and decides _Jesus_ , she needs a shower.

* * *

The water’s cold but it’s clean, and Nancy watches the streams of brown run down the drain, tries not to think about how long she walked around with all of that on her.

She scrubs under her fingernails and deep in her hair. Her skin prickles with goosebumps in the cold but she stays under the water as long as she can.

When she steps out the mirror is clear, no steam to fog it. She takes a deep breath as she studies her own reflection, finds unfamiliarity in the face gazing back..

Her hair’s choppy, hitting just below her ears. Her cheekbones are prominent, her shoulders pointy. Skin is pink from the cold water, and the freckles on her chest and her nose are striking against the color. She can nearly count her ribs in the mirror, and her breasts… Non-existent, pretty much.

She puts on clean clothes she took from the bedroom, jeans and a t-shirt, women’s, which means-

 _Well_.

The jeans are big, but once she polishes off that entire cake she spied in the fridge, they might fit a little better.

She comes out with water dripping down her neck, leaking in to the shirt. Jonathan looks out from the kitchen, open bag of chips in his hand.

“Good?” He asks.

Nancy smiles.

* * *

They sit on the living room floor and eat the crumbly cake, slices of hard bread, packs of stale cookies and crackers. Jonathan doesn’t say anything when she stuffs two Oreos in her mouth at once, and she watches him twist them apart and lick out the middle.

For the first time in so long her belly aches from being too full, like finishing Christmas dinner at her grandparents.

Jonathan flops down on the floor, spreads out his arms. She’s pressed against the TV stand, knees to her chest.

“I’m gonna throw up.” He says, and then smiles up at her.

He looks young, sprawled out like that, hair falling away from his face.

“Me too.”

He closes his eyes. The clock on the wall ticks softly, an everlasting battery life. 11 o’clock.

Nancy thinks of the large bed in the other room, of how soft it would feel under her tired body. They’ve spent the better part of their time sleeping on the goddamn ground, she wants something comfortable, just for a night.

Only aside from taking the bullets, Jonathan’s not entered that room. It’s been so long since she’s slept by herself, but she’s just now realizing she doesn’t want to.

So she scoots across the rug and settles next to him, head pillowed on his outstretched arm.

He hums, softly.

Nancy tries to think back to months ago, if she ever would have imagined sleeping next to Jonathan Byers, no matter how innocent the situation.

Of course she wouldn’t have. Nancy back then wouldn’t have imagined anything beyond passing Kowalski’s test and movies with Barb and going to Homecoming with Steve Harrington.

There’s a pang in her chest. She hopes Steve is okay.

Jonathan twists, his head bumping hers softly.

“Sorry,” He mumbles, and then- “You smell nice,”

Nancy laughs, harsh and rough, right from her throat.

“So do you.” She pokes at his side. “Not like usual.”

He huffs, but it’s all for show.

She falls asleep to the ticking of the clock, the feel of Jonathan’s breath on her head.

* * *

They play house for a little bit.

Jonathan makes breakfast in the morning, home fries on a stove that, by some miracle, still works. It’s _hot_ food, the first time in forever, and she burns the roof of her mouth but it’s worth it.

More cookies and crackers for lunch. They pass the time by watching movies left in the living room; _The Poseidon Adventure, Apocalypse Now._

“You know how much this costs?” Jonathan says as he slides the video into the player, disdain on his face. “He hasn’t gotten Will a birthday present since he was 8.”

The movies are distracting, at least. She falls asleep halfway through _Apocalypse Now_ , and wakes to the sound of gunfire. Her heart thuds until she recognizes the tinny quality, the shouting.

Nancy turns the movie off.

She can hear the shower running; he must have given up on Martin Sheen as well. She heads for the kitchen, scrounges through what goods they haven’t consumed yet. There’s cereal, half a bag of pretzels, some vaguely rotten fruit.

She’s deciding between another Oreo dinner and testing the quality of the meat in the freezer, when Jonathan reaches over her shoulder and snatches the cookies.

“Hey!” She turns to grab them back, hands hitting his.

As he struggles with the wrapping she notes, casually, that’s he’s standing there in jeans, wet hair, and a bare chest.

He looks skinny too. She almost wants to reach out and touch his ribs; they don’t feel that noticeable when she lays against him at night.

He puts the cookie between his teeth, holds the package out to her. There’s two left, she accepts one.

Jonathan pushes the container against her again, but she only pushes it back.

“Nancy,” He tries to mutter around it, but only succeeds in spraying black dust into her face.

She wrinkles her nose.

He holds back a laugh as he takes the cookie out of his mouth, watches her wipe at her forehead.

The moment reminds her somehow of Mike, of familiarity. _Brother_.

Of course, if Jonathan’s like her brother, then she’s had some borderline very incorrect thoughts.

* * *

That night he forgoes the floor and sleeps on the couch in the living room, one hand gripping the gun, the other curled up underneath him. 

Nancy retreats to the bedroom, settling among the stiff sheets. It's weird, to be alone. She can't hear Jonathan's soft breathing, his little movements as he shifts beside her. 

But the bed is comfy, and the air is cooler, and she's out flat in a handful of minutes. 

She dreams of a faceless man in the night, a dripping mouth and a hand on the back of her head. Looking up to see It, right in front of her, but she can't scream. 

When she wakes with a start there's no one hovering above her, no one ever so softly shaking her shoulder, murmuring her name. 

She slips out of the bedroom, feels her way along the walls. In the dark she stumbles a few times, bare feet colliding with chair legs, but she finds her way to the living room. 

The curtains have been torn down and in the moonlight she can see him on the couch, one leg drooping off, hand still holding the gun. 

Nancy weighs her options for a moment; going back to bed, skin covered in sweat, talking herself down. Or-

The carpeted floor creaks as she walks across it. Jonathan adjusts on the couch, eyes barely opening as she nears him. 

"Nancy?" Only the consonants really come out, sleepy and confused. 

She doesn't answer, only sits down on the edge of the cushion.

He scoots back as much as he can, and she lays down, head pressed against his ribs, one knee moving in between his. 

"Okay?" He asks, and she nods against the fabric of his shirt. 

His eyes fall shut again, and one hand comes gently to rest on her shoulder. 

Now she can hear his breathing, quiet puffs out his mouth, the repetitive song in her head. 

* * *

When they wake up he's pressed tight to her back, arm settled on her waist, and it's horribly intimate and.... Nice. 

It’s weird to share these sorts of moments with Jonathan, a boy she’s never so much as kissed.

She thinks about it sometimes, when he leans in to whisper or when he smiles, all the way across his face. But that would ruin it, she tells herself, and it’s just as nice to have _this_ between them. Whatever it is.

Friendship. Circumstance. A different kind of family, maybe.

* * *

The food’s all gone and Nancy’s scrubbed herself so clean she’s probably taken off a few layers of skin, and they’re ready to go again.

They can’t get a car, it turns out, and even if they did it would run out of gas or break down again, sooner or later.

So they go out on foot again, only now she has new boots -also too big-, cans of mushy vegetables, and one box of Oreos that she traded her red jacket for.

Worth it.

Jonathan holds out the map, and they try to decide where to go next.

 _Indiana is overgrown and useless_ , she tells him. _It doesn’t matter_.

Part of her means that she almost believes she’ll never find Mike, that instead she could have spent the rest of her time with him in that house, if he wanted.

But she also knows Jonathan, knows he’d never give up on Will, on his mom.

And they’ve come this far, anyway. It’s not going to kill them.

( _Hopefully_.)

* * *

They have some issues leaving the city.

First, it’s one of _them_ , lurking in the bushes. It gets a hand on Jonathan’s bag, and she fires a handful of times, before it finally drops down.

Then there’s a gun to his head, and another pointed straight at her.

She doesn’t know if _they_ knew the thing would be there, waited for the first idiots to spot it. Or if it was all just a great coincidence.

But they take the guns and their packs, dump it all out on the side of the road. The cans bounce once on the gravel, her cookies crushed underneath them. Nancy watches the photo of Will crumple in the dirt.

Jonathan stiffens beside her.

They pick through the mess, take the cartridges and food, leave them with just those goddamn _beans_. The group doesn’t say much, and it’s a five minute ordeal that leaves the two of them more or less-

Helpless.

Nancy sucks a breath through her teeth, tries not to give into the urge to shout.

He puts the remainder of their things in one bag, picks up Will’s picture and shakes it out.

The bat’s broken in half, snapped against a knee in a last ditch _screw you_. He wraps his hand around the handle, jabs it out in a sharp motion.

“Hey.” He offers, repeats the action towards her.

There are two sides of Jonathan, she’s discovered. One that thinks the world is, for the most part, pretty terrible. One that distrusts people he meets and closes himself off, for fear of further disappointment.

But the other side doesn’t want _her_ to think that too. It’s like he wants to protect her from everything being Actual Shit, trying to get her to see _Hey, Nancy, look, we can still stab something_.

He’s at odds with himself, sardonic and brooding and protective and hopeful, all at once.

So, she laughs in response.

He frowns at first, fingers wrapped tight around the bat, but then she sees the corners of his mouth curl up.

* * *

The woods feel familiar once they’re back out there. The nighttime, dark and cool, feels almost better than a real bed did.

Nancy lays on her back and looks up at the stars. They dot the sky in a way that her Science teacher would have called _spectacular_ , but knowing what lies beneath them, she thinks maybe they’re just _okay_. _Passable_.

She thinks of the telescope she had when she was younger. She went through an astronomy phase, memorizing constellations and sitting out in the backyard for hours at night.

Mike broke the telescope one day, playing in the basement. She remembers screaming at him, chewing him out for it.

She should have hugged him instead, she thinks. Because now, well-

Maybe he's looking up at the stars too. A cliche, probably, but it makes her feel a little better.

Jonathan moves beside her, then hisses softly. 

"You okay?" She mutters, turning towards him, quiet, just them in the dark.

She can make out a nod, but she watches him push up his sleeves too, look down at his arm.

"Jonathan?"

Her hand reaches out of its own accord, runs along his exposed forearm. It comes back wet with something, dark and runny.

He furiously mops at the area, but Nancy's already sat up.

"It's small." He says, but when their eyes meet there's already apprehension in his.

Fear.

"We'll be okay." She says out loud, because one of them has to.

Even if all they have is a broken baseball bat and cans of beans, and even if neither of them believe it.


	3. Chapter 3

There’s really nothing to do but wait.

She considers leaving, but in the dark they’ve got a worse chance of knowing where they’re going, and a better chance of being surprised by something awful.

So she props the broken bat in her lap and sits straight against the tree, watches the night fade away into the bright of morning.

Jonathan stays beside her, knees bent, ready to spring to action, only-

Nothing ever comes.

The sun rises above the trees and the forest is bright, and her eyes are watering, and nothing at all happened.

No undead monsters, no screams in the night.

It’s hours before they speak to each other again, like they’ve both been too busy watching, waiting, to talk.

“Should we go?”

It’s Jonathan who breaks the quiet at once, his voice scratchy like he just woke up from a deep sleep.

She feels heavy, weighed down to the ground. It’s a trick, it’s a trap, it’s going to come running through the bushes and ambush the both of them.

“Nancy?”

She nods.

Jonathan pushes himself to his feet, steadies against the tree. He reaches out his hand to her, and she spies the soft scratch on his arm. A little red line, from his mid-forearm to just under his elbow, the blood dried in the morning air.

“Why didn’t it come?” She whispers.

He doesn’t have an answer.

* * *

It’s hot. Indiana summer, sweaty and muggy and disgusting, all around.

Nancy rips her jeans, which isn't smart, she knows she’ll need them eventually. But it’s unbearable, really.

Her short hair sticks to her neck, slides across her temples.

Jonathan’s frizzes in the heat, and she offers to give him a haircut too, but he only shakes his head.

It’s long now, longer than hers. She wonders how it doesn’t bother him.

They stumble on the river one afternoon, sweat glueing her shirt to her back, and for half a second Nancy thinks she’s imagined it.

It looks deeper than she thought it would be; the water’s muddy and she can’t quite see the bottom.

Jonathan drops his bag, slips off his worn black boots. She watches out of the corner of her eye, as he dips just the tip of his foot in.

“Baby.” She teases.

He looks up with a grin, and in an instant she’s got her bag on the ground. She pulls off her shirt in one fluid movement and Jonathan pointedly stares back down at the water.

 _Silly_. She’s got two pairs of shirts and one set of jeans, it’s only practical to not get them soaking wet.

Her skin prickles as she steps in, feet squishing on the mud. It trickles in between her toes, makes her smile at the sensation. She keeps going until it gets the deepest, nearly at her waist. It’s a wide stretch of water; when she turns to look back at Jonathan he’s a few yards away from her, still standing ankle deep.

“Come on.” Nancy says, then drops her knees and sinks under.

She can’t see a thing when she opens her eyes, it’s too dark and the water stings. But she stays until there’s a burning in her chest, until she has to come up, gasping as soon as her mouth hits the air. He’s there beside her when she resurfaces, pushing his own hair out of his eyes, shirt and jeans abandoned beside hers on the bank.

She leans back, away from him, spreads out her legs and floats atop the water. It’s quiet here, almost as quiet as it felt under the water. Just them, and the forest, and nothing else.

Something grabs at her ankle and Nancy has to stop herself from screaming.

Jonathan has a terribly guilty look on his face, like he didn’t think the action through all the way, Mike hiding under her bed after they watched _Halloween_.

She kicks up at him, water splashing, and he lets go. Nancy sinks down again, until her shoulders are just above the surface.

He freezes, mouth open, looking like he thinks he’s honestly upset her.

“Nancy-“

Her arm skims across the water, a solid, swinging movement she remembers from being a kid, gets him straight in the face.

For a solid moment he’s stunned. He looks down at her, water dripping into his eyes, and Nancy spins on her heel and tries her hardest to cut through river.

He gets her round the waist, lifts her up nearly out of the water. She’s laughing so loud it almost sounds wrong in her ears, hands gripping his, both of them toppling, slipping under the surface.

They lay out on the bank to dry. The dirt sticks to her back, the dead leaves, broken branches.

Jonathan heaves out a sigh.

She can hear the forest buzz from down here. It’s a whole, alive, _real_ thing.

* * *

They follow the river for a while, because it has to lead somewhere.

One afternoon she thinks she hears other voices. She tries to pinpoint where they’re coming from, but every time she thinks she hears something clearly, a half dozen other sounds begin.

Jonathan says he hears them too, so at least if she’s crazy, then she has company.

“It sounds like kids.” He says, scraping a foot across the forest floor.

She gets it.

* * *

They stumble on the bodies just before it gets dark. Nancy’s glad for that, because she doesn’t know if she could handle that kind of surprise in the pitch black.

They’re both old, older than the two of them, skin grey and peeling. She wonders how they died. If _It_ got them, if they didn’t have enough food, if an animal-

Jonathan kneels down. He touches the wrist of the man on the left and, with a slow, gentle motion, moves his hand to the side.

There’s a small pistol laying underneath, curled just so under the man’s arm.

“Isn’t that-“

He looks up at her.

Nancy wants to say _wrong_ , but maybe it isn’t. These two certainly can’t use it now.

He gives her the gun. She wipes it off on the bottom of her shirt, slips it into the back of her jeans.

Jonathan stands again, gives one last look to the bodies.

They keep going.

* * *

She turns 18, and she only knows the day because they sneak into a convenience store off the highway the week before, pick up what’s left that hasn’t rotted.

There’s a selection of calculator watches by the abandoned register, and more than half of them are on the same date, so she figures it must be at least ballpark.

August 21st. _Happy birthday_.

It’s a cloudy day. The forest is covered in shadows, light barely peeking between the dark clouds. It’s going to rain soon.

Rain on your birthday is good luck, right? Maybe that’s your wedding day.

She tries to bring it up casually as they eat breakfast, but Jonathan freezes with a handful of crackers halfway to his mouth.

“Oh.” He says, more to himself than to her. He drops the crackers, looks down at his lap, seems at a loss for what to do.

Nancy wonders what she would be doing at home, if she had remained in suburban normalcy. Her mother would have thrown a party, probably. Not a Party, like an underage-drinking-stay-out-til-2 Party, but a party.

A Karen Wheeler party, with sheet cake and Nancy’s favorite kind of pizza. Barb would get her a new outfit, something cool and sort of expensive that she pointed out in the mall one day. Her father would buy a new phone for her room, her own line, so she and Barb don’t block work calls.

Mike would make her something. A Lego version of her room, a cut out of Tom Cruise from a magazine. Something silly but _nice_ , because he put thought into it.

She’s imagining Mike pouring over issues of _Seventeen_ for things he thinks she’s interested in, when Jonathan passes the crackers over, getting up and moving past her.

She cranes her neck around, watches him start to dig through his bag. He’s pulling out items at random, letting them pile up beside him.

“What are you looking for?”

The scissors tumble off of a rolled up jacket, a can rolls into her foot.

“Um,” He pauses, pushes up a sleeve. “For you.”

“What?”

“A present. For you.” He mumbles the words, like they’re almost hard to get out.

“You knew?” She asks in disbelief, rising to her feet, wiping her knees free of mud. It’s two steps until she’s standing over him, looking down as he shakes his head.

“I mean, I figured we were going to hit it as some point.” He pushes his hair from his eyes, averts his gaze. “It was in the store.”

He holds out a fist, and she can just make out something long and silver dangling from it.

She sinks to her knees, opens her palm, and he drops the object in it.

It’s a necklace, a thin chain and an ornament, small and smooth. Between the dim light and her fingers, she recognizes it.

Ballet shoes.

Her hand flies to her neck, fingers tracing where the familiar object used to lie.

She lost it ages ago, a highway just outside of Hawkins, trying to balance kneeling in the front seat of his car going 50 and propping the shotgun out the window.

“It’s, um- I’m sure yours was nicer.” Jonathan begins to repack his bag; clothes, cartridges, pictures.

“Thank you.” She offers, but he’s looking down at his things.

“Jonathan,” Nancy waits until he pauses, finally meets her gaze. “Thank you.”

* * *

“When’s yours?” She asks that night, knees tucked to her chest, curled up in the dark.

“December.”

“December what?”

“Second.”

She can’t imagine December. Cold, snowing, frigid. The two of them. Would they still be out in the woods? Still searching?

What if they can’t find the boys by then? When do you just give up on something like that? Pack it in and move on?

“I’ll remember that.” She tells him, because giving voice to the other thoughts would make them more real than she’d ever want them to be.

He smiles at her, then immediately raises a hand to his mouth, as if to cover it.

Nancy closes her palm around the charm on the necklace as she watches him shut his eyes.

* * *

“Alright, new one. Music. Bands.”

“Oh, I’m going to smoke you, Wheeler.” He says it like there are other people playing along with them, like the game has an ending that isn’t one of them deciding it’s time to eat.

“Whitney Houston.” She offers first, and Jonathan _honest-to-God_ tuts at her.

“Not a band.”

“Come on.”

“You said _bands_.”

“Fine!” She nearly throws her hands up. “Duran Duran.”

Jonathan smirks.

“Velvet Underground.”

There’s a fallen branch just ahead of them, and she tries to be cool and sauve about hopping up on it, only she twists an ankle on the wet wood and her right knee gives out.

Jonathan catches her on the dismount, arm looping around her waist.

“Alright?” He asks, and she nods.

He’s looking down at her expectantly. Nancy almost, _almost_ gives in to what she thinks (hopes?) he wants, what she wants, until she remembers the game.

“Stevie Wonder.”

Jonathan pulls his arm back, shakes his head as he walks forward.

“Do you know what a band is?”

* * *

It gets too hot to sleep. The air is like breathing in a sauna, moist, sticky, and overpowering.

She spreads out her limbs so nothing’s touching, a starfish among the dead leaves.

“What do you miss the most?” She whispers, and the sound carries in the dead air.

Jonathan is silent for a few seconds.

“My mom.” He breathes out, rests his hands on his stomach. “Will. Giggles cookies.”

She chuckles.

“McDonalds. Sandy. A bathtub-“

“What’s Sandy?” Nancy turns on her side, but he’s still gazing up at the tree top.

“Our dog. Will named him. After the dog in _Annie_ , right?”

“Yeah.” She smiles at the thought.

“Chocolate donuts. I’d kill for one of those.”

“That’s pretty dark, Byers.”

Jonathan grins up at the sky.

“You?”

Nancy wrinkles her nose. She misses everything at different times. Some mornings she thinks she’d give anything for a glass of orange juice, or even just a hairbrush.

“Mom. Dad. Mike. Holly.” The easy ones. “Barb. New clothes. Meatloaf.”

He breaks into a grin.

“You think we’ll ever have meatloaf again?” He asks, and Nancy bites down on her lip.

“You have to have hope.” She teases.

It’s not really a joke.

* * *

It happens in an instant.

They’re playing that stupid game, and she’s stuck on TV shows, her brain just repeating different episodes of _Family Ties_ , when she hears something.

A laugh echoes in the trees. She looks over at Jonathan, broken bat swung over his shoulder. He’s smiling to himself, but she knows it didn’t come from him.

It happens again, louder this time, and Nancy feels her stomach drop.

She’s off before she even puts it together in her head, pushing through the clumps of shrubs, trying to listen and orient her self at the same time.

“Mike!” The name escapes from her mouth just as it pops into her brain, a shout among the endless rows of trees.

Her heart is so fast she thinks it might just bust out of her chest. The woods blurs as she runs; in the corner of her eye she can see Jonathan rushing after her, but all she hears is that same laugh.

“Mike!”

She can hear her mother calling him for dinner, _Michael Wheeler get up here right now!_

“Mike!”

She nearly tumbles through a patch of bushes, rights her footing, and he’s _there_ , suddenly. Just in front of her.

“Nancy?”

It’s all of half a second before he’s in her arms, her little brother. Not so little now.

She’s just registering the fact that she’s crying when something presses against the back of her head. Hard. Cold. Metal.

“Hey!” Jonathan’s voice sounds, and she hears another click.

She pulls away from Mike to see a gun aimed at her face, touted by a girl who looks at once small and scared and _terrifying_.

“No, hey, El!” Mike’s waving his arms, shaking his head. “It’s okay! This is my sister!”

The girl drops the gun, lets it settle against her side.

“This is Nancy.” Mike takes her hand, and he sounds so much like a man she wonders for a second if she’s mistook him for someone else.

The girl purses her lips, gives a single nod. Mike turns away from her, glancing over Nancy’s shoulder, and a different look comes over his face.

“Will’s not with us.” He says softly, and she doesn’t want to turn around to see Jonathan’s disappointment.

“Where is he?” His voice cracks on the question.

She wants to hold her brother again, but Mike’s looking back over at that girl.

 _Elle_?

“It’s, um…” The two share a glance, something familiar. “It’s complicated.”

* * *

It went down in a typical zombie disaster fashion.

They all left Hawkins together. She must have just missed Mike, she thinks, because he talks about coming back home for his bike, his walkie talkie.

They lasted about a week out there like that. All four of them. Together. And then -and Mike’s story is confusing at best- _something_ happens.

There’s a storm (Nancy remembers sitting in Jonathan’s car all day, silently passing a bag of Cheetos between them), and they all think they hear something out in the woods. So Lucas gets on his bike to go check it out, and Mike argues that they should all go if one of them is going, and Will doesn’t think they should leave their camp area at all, and Dustin’s trying to agree with all three of them at once.

Somebody screams, presumably Lucas in the context of the story. And they all go after him, but it’s dark, and wet, and they don’t know the woods half as well as they think they do, and they all get lost.

And when they join up again, they’re missing one.

* * *

Nancy deliberately doesn’t look at Jonathan as Mike talks, because she doesn’t know if she could bear the hardness in his eyes.

Mike keeps looking over at the girl, who sits there in silence, a placid look on her face. He tells them that Lucas and Dustin are off practicing with the wrist rocket but they should be back soon, _they’re going to be so excited you’re here_.

When he goes silent, and they’re left with the sounds of the forest around them, Nancy gives into her curiosity.

“Who are you?” She asks the girl, and in the back of her head she can hear her mother chiding her for being rude.

Mike glances over in surprise, then almost laughs.

“Oh, right.” He smiles, half his mouth lifting up. “This is El. Um, Eleven.”

“That’s her name?”

He nods, seriously.

Jonathan is still quiet beside her. He wipes at his mouth, taps his fingers against his knee. Motion, motion, motion, until-

“He’s dead.” It’s not really a question, but not a statement of truth either.

The girl - _Eleven_ \- shakes her head quickly. She looks over at Mike for reassurance, then fleetingly back at Jonathan.

“No.”

He waits for further explanation, but it doesn’t come.

“If he was out there _alone_ , then-“

“No.” She presses, and Mike, mercifully, jumps in.

“Okay, so- El can do stuff. Like, mind stuff. Cool mind stuff.”

Nancy’s already lost.

“She came to us after Will disappeared. Like, she found us. That’s…” He looks down, seems to gather his thoughts. When he looks up he meets Jonathan’s eyes, nearly matching him in desperation.

“We’ve been looking for Will too. El knows he’s okay.”

“How?” Jonathan sounds mocking, angry at Mike, at the boys, at himself.

The young girl shrinks under his question, looks like she’s about to shout and cry at the same time.

“How?” He repeats, and Nancy wants to take his hand, only hers is still holding Mike’s.

Eleven points to her chest, finger resting just over her heart.

There’s another period of silence. It seems to stretch on indefinitely, awkward in the worst possible way, and then-

Jonathan rises to his feet swiftly, turns, and marches away from them.

“Mad.” El whispers, turning to face Mike.

“Not at you.” He reassures her, and Nancy feels suddenly out of place.

* * *

Dustin and Lucas _are_ happy to see her, surprisingly. Dustin hugs her right around the middle, does the same to Jonathan when he comes fumbling back, red eyes and sunken shoulders.

Lucas asks where they went, who they saw, how they made it out of Hawkins. He’s really excited about them killing zombies.

“We only saw one. And, uh, she killed it.”

Eleven is always _she_ , Nancy picks up on that pretty quick. And Will is just _he_ , and she and Jonathan become _they_.

“Leave them alone.” Mike says, even though Lucas is only questioning her.

He and Dustin retreat to their own space, mumbling to each other in voices that sound half-heartedly argumentative.

It’s almost overwhelming to see them again like this. She doubles back, down the squashed path she ran just hours ago, flattens her palms against her jeans in an attempt to keep them from shaking.

She breaths in, out. Again. Again.

Mike’s okay. Dustin and Lucas: okay. Jonathan: okay.

They’ll find Will. They’ll all be together, and then they’ll find another house to live in. Maybe they’ll go back to Indianapolis, see if they can all fit in that house. Or maybe they’ll return to Hawkins. Maybe it’s better now. She and Mike can move back home, and the boys can live in the basement. Eleven can come too, _why not_ , she’s their friend now.

They’ll be together. They’ll be safe.

* * *

She wants to sleep next to Mike, wants to reassure herself he’s still here, but when she gets back he’s already laid down next to that girl, and Nancy feels weird about joining them.

They’re not touching, just side by side, but their bodies curve in the same direction, like two connected beings.

It’s so odd to see him after all this time. Maybe it wasn’t too much, a handful of months at most, but he’s different.

She’s different, too. She carries a gun in her jeans and has dirt caked under her nails, calloused fingers, a thudding in her heart.

Mike’s older, so much older than he ought to be. Only 13, but he carries such a weight.

For a few seconds she watches them. Mike curls in on himself when he sleeps. She can’t remember him sleeping like that before.

Once it begins to feel just a bit too weird, she passes them, passes Dustin and Lucas a few feet to the right, and joins Jonathan below the canopy. He’s on his side, facing away from her. He doesn’t say anything as she lays down, rests her head on her hand.

The tree rustles. Something small runs down the bark, scatters across the dirt. There’s a soft noise beside her, and it takes her a moment to realize that he’s crying.

Nancy feels empty, drained out. She wants to embrace him straight out but it feels wrong, somehow.

Yet at night they still press close to each other, and it’s only in the morning that they ignore that any of it ever happened. And it’s dark now, and her brother is asleep, and Jonathan’s _crying_.

So she reaches out, one hand, laying just over his. He flinches, then freezes.

She desperately wishes she knew what to say. Her mom would know, something like _“Sometimes you just have to push through”_ , something cliche she read on a church calendar.

She settles for “ _I’m sorry_ ”, her hand gripping his.

He breathes out, shaky. Nancy waits, counts the spaces in between his breaths. Her fingers weave with his, nails scraping the ground.

He turns over to face her, and he’s _asking_ , as much as Jonathan can, anyway.

She slides closer, until her forehead bumps his nose. She feels the wet, and wildly wants to wipe it away, but that, _that_ would be too much.

They fall asleep, her head under his chin, hands tangled in the middle, and that must be how Mike finds them in the morning, because his face is red as he asks how she’s feeling.

* * *

It’s different with the boys. The boys and Eleven.

The stuff she did with Jonathan, the stuff that was _normal_ for the two of them; knowing which food the other likes, sleeping together, debating the ending of _The Shining._ That stuff’s weird to the boys.

Which is stupid, because she knows for a fact that Mike has some hard opinions on _The Shining_.

And maybe it’s because she doesn’t know Lucas and Dustin particularly well. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t spent this much time with them since she was 13 and Mike corralled her into an elf outfit and had her spend her Saturday in the basement with them.

Maybe it’s because they don’t know how to talk to Jonathan about Will.

The boys don’t like the categories game. She and Jonathan still play, but sooner or later someone will interrupt them with a cry of “Wasn’t the sequel better, though?” and then they’ll start arguing among themselves.

It’s like having three little brothers, and a mysterious tag along.

The girl doesn’t talk much. She sticks to Mike’s side like glue, only speaks in short sentences.

The _mind stuff_ is true, it turns out. Lucas explains, in a hushed voice, checking over his shoulder to make sure Mike isn’t watching, that she _exploded_ the Thing they saw.

At this point, that honestly doesn't sound any weirder than the other stuff Nancy's seen.  

“It was coming right at us, the stones wouldn’t stop it, and we couldn’t figure out the gun, so she just-“ He pops opens his hands, fingers spreading wide. “It was crazy.”

* * *

They reach a main road. There’s a knocked down city sign, half stuck in the mud. All it reads is -NEE as they each step over it, until Mike somehow catches the toe of his sneaker and lands face down in the dirt.

It’s Dustin who directs them into the town.

“Maybe there’s a restaurant that’s open.” He says, and it sounds half a joke and half a genuine wish.

They all move down the wide street, like a slow-motion herd.

Every now and then Nancy catches Jonathan glancing back around, almost counting them all in his head. His eyes go to Mike, then Dustin, Lucas, Eleven, and finally to her.

She pretends not to notice, but takes his hand anyway.

* * *

No restaurants, but there are a handful of stores on a center street that seem promising. As they pass by she wonders if they’ll have any actual luck with a grocery store, or if everything would have decayed, turned to mush on the shelves by now.

Jonathan pauses in front of the record store, turns back to give her a questioning look.

“Predictable.” She says, and he shrugs.

“Dependable.”

“Boring!” Dustin announces, but they all end up going in anyway.

The boys pull out their favorites. Mike holds _The River_ in front of his face, and Eleven laughs.

There’s a player nestled next to the counter. Nancy drags a finger across the edge, thinks of the one that used to sit in her room. Probably still sits there.

She presses the button down, and nearly jumps when the music begins.

It _works_. Of everything, this remains. Hawkins is deserted, Indianapolis is half as bad, but this store in bum _fuck_ nowhere has a working record player.

Nancy laughs out loud.

It’s soft at first, scratchy and out of use. But the tune comes through. Familiar sounding, and she finds herself humming along before she even recognizes what it is.

 _Stevie Wonder_. That song her mom used to play during New Years parties, brassy, swinging. Happy.

Jonathan steps up behind her, she can see his reflection in the glass of the record player. But she continues to watch it spin, thinks of being six, dancing on her father’s shoes.

The sound cuts out, the record stills.

Nancy swallows. She waits, a long few seconds.

A hand comes around her, lifts the lid, the needle. He blows on the disk, sets it back straight. Jonathan presses the button down, and his hand bumps her hip as he pulls it back.

A loud scratch, then Stevie echoes in the empty store.

_As long as I know I have love_

_I can make it_

She wants to turn around, but she already knows Jonathan’s looking at her. He probably has that same expression, little crease in his forehead, eyes so zeroed in it’s like he’s studying her.

Or maybe there’s nothing left to study. Maybe they know each other so well by now it’s just instinct.

Nancy closes her eyes, leans back. Her head knocks his shoulder, and she slides until she fits into the crook of his neck.

Mike’s voice sounds in the corner. He’s nearly shouting, excited, _happy_ , even with it all.

The record begins to grow quieter. She hums the last few notes into Jonathan’s neck, continues even after the song has ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while for two main reasons. One, because I just got insanely busy, and two: I could not, for the life of me, decide on if I actually wanted to put the boys in it or not? I rewrote it a bunch, but ultimately I stuck them in there. Because:  
> A) I love them, these kids are the lights of my life  
> B) I need so much Nancy/Mike in my life. Gimme all of the Wheeler sibs. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting! It makes me so happy to know other people don't just find my incessant need for AUs annoying.
> 
> Once again, it's like 1 am and I have HW due tomorrow. Really coming full circle.


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